Untitled [woman seated in a folding chair and crossing her legs] 1955 - 1967

Curator: Oh, this piece…there’s a nervous energy about it, wouldn't you agree? Editor: Yes, absolutely. We're looking at an untitled drawing by Richard Diebenkorn, created sometime between 1955 and 1967. It's a deceptively simple sketch of a woman seated in a folding chair, legs crossed. Yet, it’s charged with an unsettling stillness. Curator: "Unsettling stillness" nails it. It feels so immediate, as if Diebenkorn captured a private, unguarded moment. Is it grief? Boredom? Existential ennui on a Tuesday afternoon? Editor: It speaks to something universal about the female experience, I think. The crossed legs are interesting--an ancient symbol, going back to depictions of goddesses, representing hidden knowledge or controlled energy, yet it appears here in such a commonplace setting. The modern chair, the gestural lines... Curator: She's caught between worlds, this woman, and the chair itself, composed of a few stark lines, suggests transience, a life temporarily paused. He uses such minimal lines to achieve so much tension. How does he *do* that? I see anxiety in those arms, perhaps? She almost blends with her thoughts... Editor: The lines are evocative—gestural yet precise—that contouring implies both fragility and a strange resilience. We have no face, but that allows the viewer to fill the space, right? We subconsciously project. This drawing carries potent symbols for life stages, such as rebirth, the passage of time. It is like he found all human conditions in a folding chair. Curator: (chuckles softly) Right, that chair--such an odd emblem. We’re all just folding chairs waiting to be unfolded. All the little stories caught in the mundane spaces... It has such simplicity, but resonates far away... Almost disturbing. Editor: Precisely. What seemed initially like a simple portrait unlocks layers of meaning with further reflection. An icon, yes, within a very quiet moment, and an emotionally dense tableau of being at once deeply human, yet set apart from everything.